Some thoughts on social issues in video games

[tacit]

Unless you've spent the last year living entirely under a rock, far from the hustle and bustle of normal life, and entirely without any sort of Internet connection, you're probably aware to some extent of a rather lengthy fuss about the heart and soul of computer gaming. This fuss, spearheaded by a diverse group of people loosely gathered under a

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Skyrim's moral arena

[anonymous]

I play Skyrim, too, about two thousand hours worth of Skyrim. There are many morally problematic situations and quests in the game. Some of them I have performed and a few I just have been unable to bring myself to indulge. The demands of Boethia and Namira, for example, I cannot abide. I'll never have that ebony mail, I guess. As for the quest involving Haelga, I've done that one, but I found it very distasteful. The point in the article about begin able to recognize problematic elements in the game and still enjoy it is well taken, but for my money, the argument can be pushed even further. As I see it, these quests exist in a game like Skyrim, not to mindlessly perpetuate odious stereotypes, but to offer the player an opportunity to think about the choices presented in the game, and to think about his or her own attitudes toward what is being asked of the playing character. I think it is interesting to observe that Skyrim not only features Haelga’s sex-negative quest, it also features a female character dealing with sexual harassment (single mother, Carlotta Valentia in Whiterun, who asks the playing character to help her stop her stalker, Mikael), and there is a general undercurrent of male Nord chauvinism that surfaces from time to time in the complaints of the Nord women. Skyrim deals in several of our most thorny social problems: racism, political conflict, colonialism, sexism, religious persecution, child neglect/abuse, and more. The game is over 4 years old, yet discussions on the Skyrim subreddit regularly include lively explorations of the difficult decisions Skyrim offers its players through their role-playing characters. Of course, one loses sight of the difference between the player and the playing character at one's peril.